


you, me, and the void god between us

by SpaceguyLewis



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dancing, Jealousy, M/M, Masturbation, POV Teague Martin, hints at larger overarching plot but fuck that i was horny and it was 3 am, no beta we die like men, non-sexual voyeurism, probably more tags needed but i can't think of them right now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:13:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22533787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceguyLewis/pseuds/SpaceguyLewis
Summary: Teague Martin jacks it after Corvo threatens him with the destruction of his entire power base, then spies upon an intimate moment between god and marked.
Relationships: Corvo Attano/The Outsider (Dishonored), One-Sided Corvo Attano/Teague Martin
Comments: 16
Kudos: 197





	you, me, and the void god between us

**Author's Note:**

> who knows what this is. i certainly don't!

In the end Corvo spares him.

As his heartbeat slows and the bitter poison on his tongue does its work, Teague stares out of bloodshot eyes as Corvo chokes out Havelock and pilfers the navy man's pockets. 

When the skull-mask turns to him - and by the Void, Teague has a sudden and intimate understanding of why Corvo terrifies the city so on a nightly basis - he's expecting the familiar trick-blade to come cleaving down across his neck. Instead, Corvo manhandles him to the floor, lays him out on his side, and sticks his scarred fingers against the back of his throat so he vomits the poison out onto the elegant red carpet. Once nothing but bile drips from his mouth in acrid strands he's maneuvered so his head is resting against Corvo's broad chest. The mouth of a vial is pressed to his lips - from the smell of it, it's a hideous mix of Piero and Sokolov's concoctions. He drinks, and although the taste makes him want to gag, the moment the liquid hits his belly he feels his guts settle and the urge to die on the spot lessens considerably. As the vial is pulled away from his mouth he coughs, and parts his lips to say something, anything to Corvo - 

and he's been discarded onto the floor again. Teague stares up at the glazed ceiling as he breathes through the pain skating along the back of his eyes and throat.

When he gets around to hauling himself upright and leaning against the chair he almost died in, Corvo’s near-silent footsteps return, heralding Lady Emily's own. Teague stares up at father and daughter – and really, how in the Void did nobody catch that, the shape of their eyes is exactly the same – and sighs.

“Long live Empress Emily Kaldwin, First of Her Name,” Teague rasps. Emily, her tiny hand clenched tight around Corvo’s fingers, nods coolly at him; and for the first time, he sees Corvo’s mouth curve into a beautiful, if terrifying, smile.

* * *

Teague misses much of the direct aftermath of Corvo’s assault on Kingsparrow Island as he's quickly squirreled away in the Royal Infirmary, but what he learns in the days after is this:

Corvo had descended on the division of the City Watch occupying the Hound Pits with the force of a hurricane; his arms crushed the breath from lungs and he activated a nonlethal arc pylon to down the rest of his adversaries. Then the storm in a man’s body took Kingsparrow Island in less than an hour with no casualties other than heavily bruised throats on the part of the men and women between him and the Empress. 

At this, Teague is struck with the deeply macabre realization that the Loyalists had no fucking idea what they were doing when they broke Corvo out of Coldridge.

As Teague is laid up in bed periodically sweating and vomiting out the last dredges of the poison Havelock gave him, there is a great reshuffling of the government. Corvo, of course, remains Royal Protector. Officially, he occupies the position of Royal Spymaster as well - but from the whispers of the servants in the small hours, it's been given to Daud, the Knife of Dunwall himself, with the Whalers serving as the Crown's eyes and ears and hands throughout the city. To Teague's surprise, one Esma Boyle emerges from the rubble as a liaison between the Crown and the gentry. Teague knew that Corvo hadn't killed her when the Loyalists had sent him off that winter's night, but he hadn't realized Corvo's cunning extended far enough to win the loyalty of one of the worst vipers in the snake pit that makes up Dunwall's nobility. As for himself...

Teague is lying awake one night, three days after Kingsparrow, when he feels a presence at his bedside. He doesn't turn to look - he knows who's there by the silence alone, and it's too dark in the infirmary aside.

"Corvo," he greets quietly. "Forgive me if I don't get up." There's no reply to that, and the silence drags on long enough that Teague begins to fear he's going mad, there in the dark. Then there's the near-silent shifting of fabric and Corvo's voice rumbles in his ear, close enough for his breath to bloom hot against Teague's cheek.

"If you betray Emily again, Teague Martin," he murmurs, lips brushing the shell of Teague's ear. "I will tear down the Abbey of the Everyman around your ears, and only when you stand alone in the ashes of your life you will know from where your misfortune springs." He swallows, throat clicking audibly in the dark.

"Understood." Teague replies, voice thick, and at his acknowledgement there's the sound of rushing water and Corvo's presence is gone.

Teague exhales, the terror of the blade in the dark slowly trickling out of his body. He wipes his brow with the back of his hand, deeply aware of the sweat chilling his skin and the raging erection between his thighs.

And - that's not a problem he thought he'd be dealing with right then. He laughs, a little hysterically, and slumps back against his pillows.

When Corvo had stalked up behind the Overseer taunting him in the stocks of Holger Square and choked the man to unconsciousness in three and a half seconds, his traitorous cock had twitched in interest. There'd also been little moments, here and there, where his eye was caught by the breadth of his shoulders as they strained against his finely tailored coat; his kindness towards the servants, bringing back little tins of salve for their raw and chapped hands from his missions; his gaze, and how his eyes seemed to shift in shade and hue from soft, dove gray to the steel of a cloud heavy with rain - and just once, when the light from the low candles of the bar turned his irises to strange, silver mirrors. This, however - being threatened so intimately, when he's nigh helpless in the dark - has lit a dark and hungry fire in his gut. Teague lets out a gusty sigh, resigned to his fate, and reaches beneath the covers to grasp his turgid member roughly. 

_"Restrict the Wanton Flesh,"_ Teague hisses as he grinds his calluses against the sensitive head. The words are sour on his tongue as he imagines Corvo returning, pinning him down with his strong hands, the spread of thick thighs crushing his hips to the mattress. _"There is no quicker means by which a life can be upheaved and sifted than by the depredations of uncontrolled desire..."_

The Corvo in his thoughts would be rough, he thinks, swiping his thumb over his own weeping slit. He would flip Teague over without care, crushing his shoulders and chest down into the thin mattress. There would be teeth, clamping into the meat of his shoulder as hands shove his thin pants down. Then there would be fingers, oiled and slick and hot, nudging at his hole, delving into him and harshly pressing at that strange bundle of nerves deep within. He would tease and torture Teague for what would feel like hours, making him dance along the edge of oblivion until he _begged_ for release.

Then - and only then, he fantasizes, stripping his cock faster as the crest of his ecstasy approaches - would Corvo undo his fly and drive his cock into Teague’s waiting hole. He’d fuck him hard and fast until he wails into the mattress, fuck him through his orgasm until he too came, leaving Teague loose and sloppy and sore. At the thought of having Corvo’s spend drip down his thighs, he comes with a barely muffled shout.

His chest heaves as he recovers, slightly stunned at the force of his orgasm. As he wipes the come on his hand onto the sheets, he finishes his chant.

_“Only sorrow is born, only misery is multiplied; within these things, the Outsider dwells.”_

* * *

Once he's recovered, Teague is given an office on the third floor of the Tower. It’s small, floored with dark wood and walls painted a pale blue to match the banners of the Kaldwin Dynasty. If he’s honest, he prefers it to the grand, cold one he has in Holger Square.

The fact that Corvo’s own shoebox office is across the hall may or may not have something to do with his preference.

The Royal Protector isn't there often; he's with the Empress almost every hour of the day. When he is there, he's either receiving reports from Daud and the Whalers, plotting some political maneuver in Parliament with Esma, or grinding away at the endless streams of paperwork that Emily can't do by herself just yet.

As the days roll by and winter steadily warms into spring, Corvo recovers from the ordeals of the last nine months. The few glimpses Teague gets of him show a man putting much needed muscle and weight back on; his hair, already long from Coldridge, is often up in a bun or braided back by Emily's careful fingers.

The bruises under his eyes remain. 

Teague dances his way through the murky politics of the Abbey, pulling strings to make the great puppet dance to his tune. He ends up assembling a rickety cot behind the desk in his office so he only needs to kick off his boots before collapsing each night. Sometimes he lies awake until he hears Corvo abandon his work, forgoing stealth in his exhaustion as he turns right down the hall to make for the stairwell. 

He wonders what Corvo gets out of all this, if anything. The man seems to exist only for his daughter, as if he would dissolve into seafoam if she no longer had need of him. 

Teague mulls over what it would feel like, to have the whole of Corvo’s devotion fixed upon you. He tries to imagine it as he falls asleep, only to awaken the next morning with his cock tenting his pants and craving the press of an imagined body to his own. It is an exquisite torture, desiring the man across the hall, but Teague cannot bring himself to stop.

* * *

One sticky, humid night in late spring, when the midnight fog is rolling up the Wrenhaven, Teague hears Corvo leave his office - but he doesn’t turn right to make for his quarters on the fourth floor. Instead, his footsteps move left down the hall, towards the music room. 

Minutes tick by, and Teague keeps half an ear out for the half-sound of Corvo’s cat-quiet footsteps - but they never return. Fifteen minutes roll past before his curiosity mounts to a level he cannot ignore - so he slips out of his office as well, moving down the hall as quietly as he can. The doors to the music room are closed, the curtains drawn on the other side, but it shares a fireplace with the portrait room, which is never locked nowadays. Teague creeps into the portrait room, shivering under the imperious stare of the Sokolovs around him. He edges carefully across the room to the rim of the unlit fireplace and peeks around the carved marble, finding his quarry almost immediately. 

Corvo is sitting in one of the comfortable, squashy armchairs, slumped forward with his face in his hands. This wouldn’t be too unusual if not for the way the lamps in the room cast pale purple light instead of the usual warm gold. The gravity around Corvo seems to have twisted in on itself, going by the floating spill of books from one of the shelves and the teapot hovering above the tabletop, its contents flowing endlessly upward.

“My dear,” an unfamiliar voice sighs, soft and sonorous in the quiet hush of the slumbering Tower. “You must rest at some point. My gifts cannot sustain you forever.” 

“Every time I close my eyes I see what you showed me, that first time, and it screams in my head, over and over - _you cannot save her, you cannot save her, you cannot save her._ ” Teague creeps closer as Corvo speaks, and his companion – 

His companion is the Outsider himself.

He looks young. Painfully young, Teague thinks, for a being condemned as humanity’s greatest threat. He’s dressed in black, body thin and lanky like a fishbone. There are bruises matching Corvo’s under his otter black eyes, and his lips are bloodless and white as they part in a soft sigh. The god strokes a hand over Corvo’s bent head, pushing an escaped lock of hair behind his ear.

“I know, Corvo,” the Outsider says softly. His face is painted with grief as he kneels before Corvo, pale hands coming up to cradle his face. “If there was a way, my dear, I would tell you. But there is not.” Corvo lets out a shuddering exhale, the herald of tears.

“There is not.” He whispers, and uncovers his face. He looks up at the Outsider and smiles a broken little smile. “Thank you. I know you’ve better things to do.” The god scoffs, not unkindly.

“You’re my favorite, Corvo. The matters of the Void can wait.”

They sit there for a long moment, watching each other, and then Corvo sighs.

“We used to dance in this room,” he says to the Outsider, gaze falling into the middling distance between the present and the past. “Em and I, or Jess and Em, depending on who was providing the music that particular day.”

“I remember. Emily used to stand on your feet.” The Outsider’s sharp, sharp teeth worry at his lip, and if Teague didn’t know better he’d say the god looked _shy_. “I am a poor substitute, my dear, but… would you care to dance?” Corvo’s eyes snap back to the Outsider’s face. Teague doesn’t know what Corvo sees there, but it must please him in some way, because he takes the Outsider’s hand in his own. Even from under the glove that Corvo wears at all hours of the day now, the Mark on his left hand shines like a star at the Outsider’s touch.

“I’d be honored,” Corvo murmurs, and the Outsider smiles. They stand together as the music room reshuffles itself around them; elegant furniture sliding out of the way to clear a decent space in the middle.They arrange their limbs in a blend between the courtly configuration for ballroom dancing and a closer, more intimate embrace. Teague notes distantly how the Outsider is a whole head taller than Corvo when they’re standing - and he nearly startles in surprise as the piano and harp behind them begin to play themselves.

At first god and man stay still, letting the opening notes play out, watching each other with soft eyes. Then, as one, they move. 

Oh, how they _move._

Teague’s seen many people dance before. There’ve been long-married couples and young lovers, professional ballerinas in the grandest of theatres and flame spinners at twilight on county downs. None of them moved like the Outsider and Corvo do now, in the Void-touched music room of the Tower of Dunwall; sure of their steps, breathing as one, like the push and pull of the moon and the sea.

Teague’s distantly aware that he’s weeping silently.

He shouldn’t be watching this. This moment of shared breath between mortal and god is not meant for curious, prying eyes - but he can’t look away.

As the piano and harp play on, Corvo and the Outsider slip closer together until they’re simply swaying in place together, Corvo’s head resting on the Outsider’s chest.

“My dear,” the Outsider begins, then trails off. He swallows, seemingly gathering his words. Corvo pulls back a little, just enough to look the Outsider in the eye. “My dear.” The god’s voice cracks on the last syllable.

At this helpless repetition, Corvo cradles the Outsider’s cheek in his Marked palm.

“Am I?” he asks, softly, gently. “Am I dear to you, Outsider?”

“In a thousand years, when your bones have crumbled to dust and Dunwall itself is naught but a memory in a fable, I will remember you.” the Outsider vows. “The whales will sing of the sound of your voice, and the waves will crash with the beat of your heart. You are not dear, Corvo - you are _beloved_.” 

There's a moment where they simply drink in the sight of each other's faces, and then they’re leaning into each other again, heads tilting to slot desperate, eager lips together. Their kiss is fervent, almost violent, like the very essence of their beings is trying to combine and weave together. The Outsider’s hand buries itself in thick, silken hair, and a muffled, needy moan rumbles in Corvo’s chest.

At this Teague finally turns away. He can’t watch this - Corvo, strange and kind Corvo, in the embrace of the greatest enemy of Teague’s station. He stumbles back to his office in a confused stupor, the image of the kiss branded onto the backs of his eyelids. He collapses into his desk chair, staring listlessly at the wall. 

What the fuck is he supposed to do? He can’t say anything to the Abbey - betraying Corvo is as good as betraying Emily, and he knows the consequences of that. 

If Teague is honest with himself, he could never speak of this anyways. No mortal eyes should have seen what happened in the music room, he thinks as he rifles around in his desk for a half-empty bottle of raspberry schnapps. But mortal eyes did, a voice hisses as he drinks straight from the bottle. 

“But mortal eyes did,” he murmurs to himself. 

He feels a great, welling sadness for a future lost; a future where Corvo might’ve looked at him with fondness, where he stood in place of a god and kissed the breath from Corvo’s lips. He laughs, something bloody and bittersweet loosening in his chest. If he had to lose, then at least he hadn’t lost to woman or man. 

There was something satisfying, having come second only to a god. 

**Author's Note:**

> changelog  
> 7/2/2020: fixed minor typing errors. added several sentences for imagery clarification.  
> 11/2/2020: error fixes, sentences added.


End file.
